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[[DEVELOPERS]]
== DEVELOPERS file and get-developers

The main Buildroot directory contains a file named +DEVELOPERS+ that
lists the developers involved with various areas of Buildroot. Thanks
to this file, the +get-developer+ tool allows to:

- Calculate the list of developers to whom patches should be sent, by
  parsing the patches and matching the modified files with the
  relevant developers. See xref:submitting-patches[] for details.

- Find which developers are taking care of a given architecture or
  package, so that they can be notified when a build failure occurs on
  this architecture or package. This is done in interaction with
  Buildroot's autobuild infrastructure.

We ask developers adding new packages, new boards, or generally new
functionality in Buildroot, to register themselves in the +DEVELOPERS+
file. As an example, we expect a developer contributing a new package
to include in his patch the appropriate modification to the
+DEVELOPERS+ file.

The +DEVELOPERS+ file format is documented in detail inside the file
itself.

The +get-developer+ tool, located in +utils/+ allows to use
the +DEVELOPERS+ file for various tasks:

- When passing one or several patches as command line argument,
  +get-developer+ will return the appropriate +git send-email+
  command.

- When using the +-a <arch>+ command line option, +get-developer+ will
  return the list of developers in charge of the given architecture.

- When using the +-p <package>+ command line option, +get-developer+
  will return the list of developers in charge of the given package.

- When using the +-c+ command line option, +get-developer+ will look
  at all files under version control in the Buildroot repository, and
  list the ones that are not handled by any developer. The purpose of
  this option is to help completing the +DEVELOPERS+ file.

- When using without any arguments, it validates the integrity of the
  DEVELOPERS file and will note WARNINGS for items that don't match.
